A Slow Day

It doesn't happen very often that I find myself twiddling my thumbs for any length of time on the normal work day, but yesterday was one of those days. The phone wasn't ringing, the e-mail was sporadic and projects were held at bay waiting on information from other people. It was one of those days that we all dream of when the phone is ringing off the hook and our in box is overflowing, but when the day actually comes, it drives us up a wall. The clock moved at a snail's pace, and the day seemed to last a week. I worked on cleaning up old e-mails, cleaning out old files, and found my self circling the building of my office multiple times throughout the day to hasten it's end and take advantage of the weather.

On one of my many mini-outings that day, I started pondering how far I was really walking on these jaunts, and how were they adding to my efforts. It was a beautiful day, but we were on the precipice of cooler weather. Certainly it was going to be more of a challenge to keep up the efforts when the weather went south and a quick walk outside wouldn't feel so refreshing. How was I going to combat the natural urge to hibernate?

As luck would have it, apparently I wasn't the only one pondering the problem. It wasn't too much later that I stumbled across an article from Dr Oz on just that subject. Of course his primary advice was that you have to keep moving. Move your walking inside, take the long way through the grocery store to pick up your items, park farther away from the front door to force yourself to walk a little farther, and buy a pedometer, so you can keep track of how far you are really walking each day. When the trend slows, pick up the pace!

So last night I headed to Target and purchased my first pedometer. I also grabbed a Kettle ball on a whim.  It was time to start getting some weights for the house on those days when the gym was a car ride too far. Interestingly enough one of the targets that Dr Oz suggested was 10000 steps a day.  I have always thought of my walks in distance not steps, but it certainly provides a more visible image of how it impacts your body to think of the goal in steps. 10,000 seems like an enormous amount, and when you look at it over time it makes more of an impact. 70,000 steps a week, 300,000 steps a month, and 3,650,000 steps a year.

So my plan is to start exploring the idea in principle. Is 10000 steps enough? Will it seem easy or hard? Have I been walking anywhere near that on a regular basis? The truth is I don't know exactly how active or non-active I am each day on a regular basis. If I get to the gym, I know exactly how many miles I put in for that work out, but beyond that who knows, and one of the things I have come to recognize is it isn't enough to simply hit the gym four to five times a week. You have to look for ways to incorporate activity every day.